Africa welcomes you, dear friends!
After border formalities you will be met by a representative of the tourist company Alpha-Zulu, transfer to your hotel and have free time for rest. You can visit the Queen Victoria and Prince Alfred Waterfront, which is a tourist Mecca. There you will find a variety of cafes and restaurants, expensive shops and souvenir stalls, folk singers and dancers acting directly on the street, seals resting on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean that caresses the eyes with its blue waves...
After a delicious and hearty breakfast you will meet your guide for excursions in and around Cape Town. Table Mountain, the symbol of the city, will be the starting point of your excursion. You will go up to the mountain in the cable car (payment is made on the spot, for whether it operates depends on the weather) and from the top you will have a bird’s eye view of this unforgettable city. After that you will visit the Cape Town Castle of Good Hope, which was the first stone structure on the peninsula, and from there you will see the Grand Parade, dominated by the Town Hall building. Continuing the journey, you will visit the Company’s Gardens built at the time of Jan van Riebeeck, founder of Cape Town. You can buy peanuts to feed the squirrels, who will eat from your hand. Next to the Gardens you will see St. George’s church, famous for having the largest stained-glass windows in the Southern hemisphere. Nearby are also the Houses of Parliament and the National Gallery of art. A tour of a jewelry factory will help you understand the process of cutting of precious stones and you can touch diamonds of various sizes and learn useful information about jewelry. If you like, you can purchase jewelry at factory prices direct from the manufacturer.
Today you will relive the days of the discoverers and of the colonial conquests and you will spend the day on Cape of Good Hope, which you have heard about in school. In 1488 Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias landed on the Cape and called it the Cape of Storms, because he had survived a terrible storm that nearly cost him and his crew their lives. Portuguese King João II, having great expectations for a new Eastern sea route, renamed it the Cape of Good Hope. Here tourists often look forward to seeing large families of baboons. These animals are very cute, but be careful not to feed them, for you might get hurt when they fight for their food. After passing the entrance gate your bus will follow a level road and then drive down to the famous promontory. Here you can make a souvenir photo against a panel that has the coordinates of the Cape of Good Hope. Then you can climb to the highest point of the Cape Peninsula, where you will enjoy the extraordinary beauty of the ocean and the bay. We now say goodbye to the Cape and we are on our way back. The road runs along the coast of False Bay and goes through the small town of Simon’s Town, near which the largest South African naval base and Boulders Beach are situated. On that beach you will meet the famous Cape penguins. Long ago, these wonderful animals chose this beach for hatching their offspring and now they live there year-round, delighting local and foreign tourists. You will stop for lunch (at your own expense) at a restaurant well known for its seafood recipes. Return to the hotel around 17h00-18h00
After a leisurely breakfast you will meet with your guide for travel to the small town of Hermanus, which is known for whales that come there during the mating period. Their games can be observed even from the shore. You will enjoy boat a trip to where you will be able to watch the whales at a closer distance (payment is made on the spot, for whether the boat operates depends on the weather). After the tour, you will return to Cape Town.
Paradise on earth! Every African spring, after the rainy season, the Namaqualand desert valleys are covered with a unique carpet of more than 6, 000 different kinds of beautiful flowers. Here you will find wild lilies, and also irises, begonias, gladioli, proteas, geraniums and many other “cultivated " inhabitants of European gardens and parks .
Here you can watch fantastic landscapes changing like a kaleidoscope with the varying light of the sun. Some flowers open, the other close, some turn to the sun and others turn away from it, creating the effect of constant movement and change of color in the landscape. Scientists explain such an abundance of species of bright-coloured flowers, which can be found nowhere else in the world, by the fact that here the soil is unique and contains yttrium, lanthanum, sternum, lutetium, scandium and other rare chemical elements.
This colorful spectacle depends on the wind, sun, rain and temperature. Every day the picture changes. There are, however, several permanent parts: the flowers are very sensitive to light and they open around 10.00 am and close at 4.00 pm. Since the plants are always facing the sun in the morning, at that time it is better to watch from the east, and in the evening, from the west. Rain, clouds and wind may temporarily cover up the view. There are some distances between major flower fields and travelers will be brought by car from one to the other.
You will stay in the unique Camp 5 FB, which was built during a very short period of time (3 weeks) in a conservation area where it is forbidden to build anything whatsoever.
You will spend this day observing plants on a "flower safari".
FISH RIVER CANYON: Early breakfast and departure for the Namibian border, where you will say goodbye to your guide. Passing through border formalities, you will meet the guide who will accompany you in Namibia. Continue your journey to the second largest canyon in the world, Fish River (161 km long and 27 km wide). This is a very ancient canyon and some of the rocks at the base are up to 2600 million years old. This canyon was formed by the shift of the tectonic plates and by soil erosion. Its breathtaking landscapes attract many tourists. There is a particularly dramatic view of the canyon at sunrise and at sunset, when the slopes shimmer with red and pink flowers. Accommodation is in a small hotel near the canyon.
You will rise early and continue your journey toward the red dunes of Sossusvlei.
Arrival in the evening, dinner and overnight.
Day trips in the dunes, visit of Sesriem Canyon at sunset.
Return to the hotel for dinner.
After breakfast, transfer to the capital of Namibia, Windhoek. A city tour, a farewell lunch with your guide and transfer to the airport for your flight home